


Simple Subtraction

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Community: ladiesbingo, Gen, Parenthood, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 12:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9235289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: Sooner or later the day will come when one of the triplets does some simple arithmetic. Yuuko can't help preparing for that day.





	

It felt like the first time that Yuuko had sat down all day. It might even have _been_ the first time. She'd got the girls to bed at last. Not asleep: that would be too much to hope for. There was a quiet chatter coming from their room. 'No, but JJ... wouldn't Victor?... no, Yurio!...' Smiling ruefully, Yuuko folded up the blanket, counted the devices. All there. The triplets probably had a skating magazine or two in their room, but at least they couldn't post anything. She took out her own phone and changed her password again, more out of a sense of duty than because she thought it would make any difference.

Of course they would all three grow up skating mad. Yuuko wondered why she'd expected anything else. Named for the figures, raised at the rink (and the management had been very generous about it all, objecting neither to three little girls running around manically nor to babies napping in baskets behind the desk), conceived on the ice -

\- well, not far off it, and maybe if Yuuko could have foreseen the consequences of that underwhelming fumble in the changing room she'd have acted differently, but then again maybe she wouldn't, she'd known it was a bad idea at the time and that hadn't stopped them, after all, and they'd both improved with practice -

\- it was no wonder that their daughters were as well-informed as any commentator.

At this moment, they were interested in the present and the future, their eyes fixed on the starry heights where Yuuri and Yurio and Victor flew or might be expected to fly very soon, but it was only a matter of time until it occurred to one of them to look back at the local records. To see Yuuri's early success, if nothing else.

And they'd find their mother, _showing great promise_ , _very consistent_ , _a solid performance_ , _does not seem to have improved_ , _slightly disappointing_ , and then _withdrawn from the competition_ , and they'd do some simple arithmetic. _Her last competition_ minus _the day they were born_ equals _about six months_.

For girls who could understand the figure skating scoring system at six years old it was not going to be difficult.

And Yuuko wasn't sure what she was going to say when they did that sum. Sometimes she prepared little sentences – not exactly a speech, because who knew when it would come up, who knew what the question would be – but some things that she knew it was going to be important to say. Not just the obvious 'Use a condom!' They were too young for that one, anyway, though she was going to have to watch intently for the moment when they weren't. By that point, she was almost sure, she'd have told them one or more of the following:

'I could have gone further, yes. But who knows how much further?' (No doubt the girls would have their own opinions on that, and maybe they'd be kind enough to keep them to themselves.)

'Maybe I'd already peaked.' (Maybe? Probably.)

'Yuuri had overtaken me years before.' (That wasn't news to anybody.)

'There are plenty of ways to end a skating career.' (And at least this way was quick.)

'An injury, for instance. And if my body was going to screw me over, at least I got something good out of it.' (And she'd have kidded herself that she could come back from injury.)

'It was a shock, yes.' (Was it, really?)

'It helped me to make a decision that I should probably have made before.' (That was closer to the truth, perhaps.)

'But you know I had a choice.' (And she'd thought hard about both options.)

'Maybe if I'd been a better skater I'd have made a different decision. But maybe I wouldn't.' (How much better?)

'I regret stopping so early.' (Who wouldn't?)

'I couldn't ever regret having you three in my life.'

However the conversation went, Yuuko promised herself, whether she had to have it once or twice or three separate times, she'd make sure to say the last one. Because it was true. Even – she paused to delete a picture that Yurio definitely wouldn't appreciate, though it looked like it had already gone viral - when they'd got into her account again.

**Author's Note:**

> For the ladiesbingo prompt 'Regret'. Though I'm not sure how many Yuuko really has.


End file.
